


Structures from Silence

by AuthorMontresor



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Might pull this in about a week or so, Read it while it lasts, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22574413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorMontresor/pseuds/AuthorMontresor
Summary: One sleepless night too many, for Cassandra. Alone in the carriage with a slumbering Rapunzel, she might get what she finally wants, and lose everything else in the process.__________________________________________________________Takes place before the end of S2.
Relationships: Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 120





	1. Reflections in Suspension

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the masterpiece album by Steve Roach. Look it up, it doubles as great background music for this piece.

Dark was the night, and Cassandra’s thoughts darker yet. Sleep eluded her, and the old routine of going out for a walk or exercising her sword-skills was made impossible by the soft-moving carriage. Max and Fidella pulled it past the forest, past meadows and hills, towards the hidden destination the Princess was drawing them all, like stars taken in the tail of a comet.

Rapunzel was sleeping, had been for a while, rocking in her sleep every half an hour or so. Had been for three times since Cassandra had decided to get out her bed and stand there in front of her.

Fat lot of good it did.

Maybe she had never been able to protect her. This whole idea had been just an illusion, and the more she tried to hold onto the Princess, the more she slipped through unseen cracks.

Fitzherbert would probably be about to say something witty and annoying by now. How come Rapunzel always seemed to listen to him, but not to her?

He was not that much older. He surely could not be more _experienced_. And yet Rapunzel hung from his every word. When had it been the last time Rapunzel had listened to her?

She bit her lip, averting her gaze from her sleeping form. She had her chance, and blew it. Her good hand clenched against a wand that had not been there for a while. Erasing her memories had been an accident, and she had never been that good at lying, no matter how ironic that was. But she could try and retry and try again, until everything worked.

Rapunzel had shown to be at her happiest when she was discovering the world.

What if every day was like the first? Could it be so bad?

Cassandra’s own memories had been shut behind an iron door, and she had never been the wiser. The wound the enchanted girl had shown her was now open and festering.

_Mother…_

No. She was better than this.

A soft bubble broke against her lips, and she had to cover her mouth to stop a whimper. How ironic, really. They had both been mesmerized by the same girl, twenty years apart, and for completely opposite reasons.

In her own fantasies, Cassandra had always pictured her mother as a kind, benevolent woman, who had abandoned her – _had to_ – under circumstances out of her control: war, maybe illness, maybe she had been separated by her due to some dark twist of fate, and maybe they would one day be reunited.

Good luck being reunited with a handful of dirt, though.

No, Cassandra was alone, and more so with every day.

She detached from the wall, walking until she was just half a pace away from the sleeping form of Rapunzel. Seen from here, the Princess was even more everything Cassandra had always wanted. Pascal slept against her chest, and her soft snores were the only sound in the night, save for the soft rumbling of the carriage as it followed the gravel road.

Wishing things could have been different was but an exercise in wasting time. Cassandra had always known as much. She could only act upon what was tangible in front of her, be it punching it or slashing it, but now she had no idea what to do with the hand that had been dealt to her.

She let go of her sword and slithered on the bed, softly spooning the Princess without touching her.

Seen from this position, her blonde head looked like an image of the sun. And she had been doing nothing but chase after the sun, had she not?

Chasing after her own shadow.


	2. Quiet Friend

One strand. That was how much she had taken for herself, and it seemed the Princess did not mind, at least as long as she was in the dream realm. Pascal had often proven to be a heavy sleeper, and she was not too worried about the little critter waking up before his mistress.

It was worth the risk.

Her heart threatened to burst through her chest as she played with the soft, impossibly smooth strand of golden hair. It was such a small thing, really. Just pass her fingers through hair. Fitzherbert did it all the time. Why could she not?

Mother must have been spent _years_ , almost two decades in fact, with her fingers tangled in these wonderful locks. All that time wasted.

But she could take one strand, couldn’t she? It would be their little secret. Friends kept secrets for friends, did not they?

It was smooth. Almost warm. Almost like caressing sunlight.

Her right hand hurt, and maybe it was a warning, and maybe it was a brief spike of guilt, but she confined the feeling under the same iron-wrought curtain she used to cover her most inane of fantasies. She could get one lock of hair, could she?

Maybe if she cut it.

Good luck with that.

Why did she keep yearning for impossible things?

If only she could take a grip on her own heart, and rip it out of her chest, and put something else in its place, she would.

Why couldn’t she?

Must be her nature. If it was, she had been given a fairly poor nature, had she not?

There were so many things she had to say, so many words of spite and anger, so many notes of neediness and lonely nights spent alone, under the flickering light of candles and with the sole company of her hands, back when she could use both of them, and losing one for her would not have been a big deal, if only it had been done in sacrifice, but sacrifice for what, she had gotten nothing out of this, and again the Princess had been slipping through her fingers, always out of reach, farther than the reflection of the moon upon a pond.

So many things she wanted to say. She did not have much time to speak. Even if her ruined hand did not spread its corruption to the rest of her arm, to her shoulder, to her poor withering heart, she did not have much time.

She was already twenty-four, and not getting a day younger, each day, every day.

Soon, sooner than she dared to hope, the Princess would reach for her destiny, and Cassandra would be left to applaud her in the corners of her own existence, standing still with a pleased smile upon her face, supportive, so obedient as Rapunzel entered into her role as a full-fledged Heir and Mother and Queen, and she would be there, would she not? Clapping. Crying a little, her tears secret. Always there, waiting, like a loyal bitch that only needed a bone thrown to her from time to time, and she would not complain, she would not bark at the shining moon taunting her far-above the bars of her gilded cage.

In time she would forget all about this.

This lock was hers, though. For the time being. The devil has its hour.

Cassandra’s left hand fell in her lap.

Why couldn’t she?

Cassandra did not have words, so she spelled them with her fingers.

She did not groan.

Did not gasp.

Did not even sigh.

Breath after shuddering breath against Rapunzel’s side.


	3. Structures from Silence

She had taken off her gloves, as she would not soil Rapunzel’s form. Her one good hand rested against her shoulder. So soft. Her other lay against her side, forgotten, as all useless things are. For a while, it was enough. For a while, this was their bed, and she had just awakened in the middle of the night, and was sleeping next to the Princess, guarding her against bad dreams, spooning her with the utmost respect.

In the haze covering her mind, this was the perfect moment. It was almost enough to make her forget about what they would find at the end of the road, and what would happen if she did not stop it. The Princess would grasp at her destiny, and that would be it.

She had already blasted her one chance with the memory wand, as sticky and venomous that thought was, and so she had no more chances, no more ways to reach for a different end, unless.

Unless she reversed the flow, of course. Made Rapunzel chase _her_.

As blasphemous as that was. She had been raised as a help to Corona’s royal family, she _knew_ what her place was, and wanting anything different, anything _else_ , anything that defied all laws and all sense, anything that went against nature and the way the cosmos was ordained, was madness.

Madness tasted like honey, honey in which someone had dispersed tiny razor-sharp fragments of glass. She licked her lips and poured herself another big dollop as her left hand rose to brush against Rapunzel’s neck.

So warm, so smooth. It would never be hers, except here, for this moment, lost like the tiny flower upon a precipice she had seen sprout last winter. Alone, against all the tidings of the world, blooming unfettered, defying the sun.

Maybe she had never been anything else but that, had she? Cassandra propped herself up on one elbow, and the bed creaked softly and her armor in tow, but the noise from the gravel road covered it, and the Princess kept sleeping undisturbed. Preserved, like transparent amber, like a dream.

Fitzherbert kept on talking about dreams. Why did her own had to take the shape of nightmares?

Cassandra leaned forward. Her fingers moved from Rapunzel’s neck to her head, caressing the softest hair in the world, brushed against her forehead, down towards her eyes and the tip of her slim nose, hesitation before her lips.

She was so close.

If she had kept on sleeping until now, why not?

Nobody had to know, save for her.

It would be nice.

A little ember to hold against her hollow chest as she witnessed the marriage, a little choking laughter to listen at for the rest of her days, while she kept on waiting for a horse never to come.

Fitzherbert could have stolen her forever, but for a time, for the briefest time, she would have been hers.

Raps never had to know.

Nobody would.

Except for her.

It would have been her little revenge.

Her head closer now. If she propped herself up on her elbow, she could reach her lips with her own.

Just a peck.

Nobody would know.

But she would know.

Just this once.

Just this once.

A tiny speck of heaven, robbed from the empyrean heights like Prometheus did with fire. She had always liked that story. Used to be one of her favourite bedtime stories from Father.

Stories were just stories, though. She was nobody’s knight, and no princess would be coming home in her arms.

She was so close she was not sure if her breath was her own, or belonged to Rapunzel.

She lingered.

Just a tiny push. She was almost there, the space between their lips thinner than her thumb.

Cassandra withdrew.

She covered her mouth, shaking, as she stood up from the bed.

This was…

Her glove came back onto her left hand.

Unbecoming of her.

Cradling her ruined hand, she left Raps’ bunk.

Maybe she was just a coward.

Or maybe she was just not Mother.

The night held no answers as she let herself fall upon her bed.

She would just have to carve her own answers, as always.

Maybe Raps would come around.

It was madness, but she would… she would give her time.

_Coward_ , her treacherous heart chirped. _You could have taken something of her_.

Maybe she had just wanted to give herself the delusion of a choice, of a trial to overcome.

They had yet to reach the final step in their journey.

She still had time. She would give Raps time to…

Cassandra turned on her side, her armor clinking. Enough about this.

She would give Rapunzel time, and talk no more.

**Author's Note:**

> That was a thing. I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave one in the box below.


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